Combined transcriptomics and metabolomics to reveal the effects of copper exposure on the liver of rainbow trout(Oncorhynchus mykiss).

Copper (Cu) is recognized as an essential trace elements for the body; However, excessive levels of Cu can lead to toxic effects. We investigated the effects of Cu2+(75 µg/L, 150 µg/L, and 300 µg/L) on the rainbow trout liver. Combination of transcriptome and metabolome analyses, the regulatory mechanisms of the liver under Cu stress were elucidated. The results showed that Cu affected the antioxidant levels, leading to disruptions in the normal tissue structure of the liver. Combined transcriptome and metabolome analyses revealed significant enrichment of the insulin signaling pathway and the adipocytokine signaling pathway. Additionally, Cu2+ stress altered the amino acid metabolism in rainbow trout by reducing serine and arginine levels while increasing proline content. Apoptosis is inhibited and autophagy and lipid metabolism are suppressed; In summary, Cu2+ stress affects energy and lipid metabolism, and the reduction of serine and arginine represents a decrease in the antioxidant capacity, whereas the increase in proline and the promotion of apoptosis potentially serving as crucial strategies for Cu2+ resistance in rainbow trout. These findings provided insights into the regulatory mechanisms of rainbow trout under Cu2+ stress and informed the prevention of heavy metal pollution and the selection of biomarkers under Cu pollution.

Exposure duration of ambient fine particulate matter determines the polarization of macrophages.

Ambient fine particulate matter (FPM) promotes airway inflammation and aggravates respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Macrophage polarization plays an essential role in FPM-induced inflammation and tissue repair. The balance of pro-inflammatory M1-type and anti-inflammatory M2-type macrophages determines the fate of tissues and is involved in the pathogenesis of various FPM-induced diseases. The mechanism of macrophage polarization induced by FPM is still not fully understood. Here, we explored the effect of ambient FPM exposure duration on the polarization of peritoneal macrophages. Mice were exposed to concentrated ambient FPM for different duration. Markers of M1-type macrophage and M2-type macrophage in peritoneal macrophages were detected. We found that macrophage polarization was affected by FPM both in vitro and in vivo. Acute FPM stimulation in vitro and short-term concentrated ambient FPM exposure in vivo promoted the expression of NLRP3 and NOS2 and inhibited the expression of ARG1 and CD206. With the extension of concentrated ambient FPM exposure time, ARG1 was gradually up-regulated, and NLRP3 was gradually down-regulated. These results indicate that FPM exposure duration interferes with macrophage polarization. This may provide new insight into the treatment of patients exposed to FPM.

Ultrasensitive dual-color rapid lateral flow immunoassay via gold nanoparticles with two different morphologies for the serodiagnosis of human brucellosis.

Lateral flow immunoassays (LFIAs) are popular because they are rapid, convenient, stable, low cost, and easy to read. However, conventional LFIAs based on gold nanoparticles lack sensitivity, which hinders their widespread use. Here, we prepared durian-like gold nanoparticles (GNDs) and labeled them with staphylococcal protein A to detect brucella antibody. Then, the analytical performances of GNDs and gold nanospheres (GNSs) with the same diameter were compared. It was found that the sensitivity of GNDs was five to ten times higher than that of GNSs. The nonspherical morphologies of the nanoparticles greatly increased the sensitivity of the LFIA. On the basis of GNDs and GNSs, we developed an ultrasensitive dual-color brucellosis LFIA. GNSs labeled with streptavidin were used to demonstrate the control line. This dual-color LFIA had a diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 100%. Human standard Brucella-positive serum (containing brucella antibody at 4000 IU/mL) could be detected in this system even for a dilution factor of 10-5. The detection limit was 0.04 IU/mL. This is two orders of magnitude better than conventional LFIA strips (detection limit 4 IU/mL). This dual-color LFIA contains all components of a conventional LFIA with no additional processing steps or reagents. It can detect antibodies in serum, plasma, and even whole blood without sample pretreatment or blood filtration pads. Both types of nanoparticles were synthesized in a simple and low-cost manner. This suggests that it will have utility for the early diagnosis of brucellosis and other diseases. Graphical abstract.

Erectile Dysfunction and Associated Risk Factors in Chinese Males of Infertile Couples.

BACKGROUND: Knowledge on the occurrence of erectile dysfunction (ED) and timely ovulatory intercourse failure (TOIF) in Chinese men of infertile couples is limited. AIM: To obtain representative estimates of ED and TOIF in Chinese men of infertile couples and to analyze potential risk factors associated with ED. METHODS: 4,299 Chinese men of infertile couples with an average age of 32.85 ± 5.98 years were surveyed using the 5-item International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) questionnaire for their ED occurrence. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to disclose risk factors associated with ED. OUTCOMES: The occurrence of ED was 57.8% and that of TOIF was up to 26.2% in Chinese men of infertile couples. RESULTS: Based on IIEF-5 criteria, 34.9% of men had mild ED and only 2.6% had severe ED. Secondary infertility, infertility with known causes, and chronic prostatitis were significant risk factors associated with ED. TOIF was significantly higher (23.3%) in men of infertile couples with ED than in those without ED (8.6%), indicating that TOIF is likely a contributing factor to male infertility. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Understanding the occurrence and types of ED and TOIF in men of infertile couples and their associated risk factors will help physicians treat clinical cases of male infertility more effectively. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: Large numbers of infertile outpatients from multiple hospital clinics across the country were included in this study. The concept of TOIF was raised for the 1st time and studied preliminarily in Chinese men of infertile couples. The lack of participants' psychological status, a control group of men of fertile couples, and measurement of testosterone levels was a limitation in this clinic-based study. CONCLUSION: The occurrence of ED was higher in Chinese men of infertile couples than in the general Chinese male population. Yang B, Xu P, Shi Y, et al. Erectile Dysfunction and Associated Risk Factors in Chinese Males of Infertile Couples. J Sex Med 2018;15:671-677.

The Steroid Hormone 20-Hydroxyecdysone Promotes the Cytoplasmic Localization of Yorkie to Suppress Cell Proliferation and Induce Apoptosis.

The transcriptional co-activator Yki (Yorkie), a member of the Hippo pathway, regulates cell proliferation or apoptosis, depending on its nuclear or cytoplasmic location. However, the upstream factors regulating the subcellular localization of Yki are unclear. We found that the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) induces phosphorylation of Yki, causing it to remain in the cytoplasm, where it promotes apoptosis in the midgut of the lepidopteran insect Helicoverpa armigera Yki is expressed in various tissues, with an increase in the epidermis and midgut during early metamorphic molting. Yki is localized mainly in the nucleus of feeding larval midgut cells but is mainly localized in the cytoplasm of metamorphic molting larval midgut cells. The knockdown of Yki in the feeding larvae promotes larval-pupal transition, midgut programmed cell death, and repressed IAP1 (inhibitor of apoptosis 1) expression. Knockdown of Yki in the epidermal cell line (HaEpi) induced increased activation of Caspase3/7. Overexpressed Yki in HaEpi cells was mainly localized in the nucleus and induced cell proliferation. 20E promotes the cytoplasmic localization of Yki, reducing the expression of the IAP1, resulting in apoptosis. 20E promotes cytoplasmic retention of Yki by increasing Yki phosphorylation levels and promoting the interaction between Yki and the adaptor protein 14-3-3-ϵ. This regulation of Yki suppresses cell proliferation and induces cell apoptosis.

Functional Assessments in Patients Undergoing Radial Forearm Flap Following Hemiglossectomy.

Our goal was to evaluate the functional outcomes following radial forearm free-flap reconstruction with a focus on radiotherapy. A 2-year prospective study was performed. A total of 47 patients were enrolled finally. They were asked to complete the swallowing, chewing, speech domains of the University of Washington Quality of Life questionnaire preoperatively and at 2 years postoperatively. Swallowing capacity was apparently affected after surgery, but no patients reported there was chokes cough during eating, the mean score was 51.1 (SD: 21.3). Most patients (70.2%) presented their articulation was good enough for everyday life, and the mean score was 60.0 (SD: 21.1). As for chewing, only 7 (14.9%) patients complained there was negative effect, and the mean score was as high as 92.6 (SD: 18.0). Compared to patients with surgery only, patients with postoperative radiotherapy only had significantly worse swallowing and speech capacity. Compared with patients with postoperative radiotherapy only, patients with both preoperative and postoperative radiotherapy tended to have better swallowing and speech. No significant differences were found between chewing and radiotherapy. In most patients, the results of swallowing, speech, and chewing are favorable. Postoperative radiotherapy has an apparent impact on functional impairment, but preoperative tends to preserve the original tongue function.

Juvenile hormone prevents 20-hydroxyecdysone-induced metamorphosis by regulating the phosphorylation of a newly identified broad protein.

The steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) initiates insect molting and metamorphosis. By contrast, juvenile hormone (JH) prevents metamorphosis. However, the mechanism by which JH inhibits metamorphosis remains unclear. In this study, we propose that JH induces the phosphorylation of Broad isoform Z7 (BrZ7), a newly identified protein, to inhibit 20E-mediated metamorphosis in the lepidopteran insect Helicoverpa armigera. The knockdown of BrZ7 in larvae inhibited metamorphosis by repressing the expression of the 20E response gene. BrZ7 was weakly expressed and phosphorylated during larval growth but highly expressed and non-phosphorylated during metamorphosis. JH regulated the rapid phosphorylation of BrZ7 via a G-protein-coupled receptor-, phospholipase C-, and protein kinase C-triggered pathway. The phosphorylated BrZ7 bound to the 5'-regulatory region of calponin to regulate its expression in the JH pathway. Exogenous JH induced BrZ7 phosphorylation to prevent metamorphosis by suppressing 20E-related gene transcription. JH promoted non-phosphorylated calponin interacting with ultraspiracle protein to activate the JH pathway and antagonize the 20E pathway. This study reveals one of the possible mechanisms by which JH counteracts 20E-regulated metamorphosis by inducing the phosphorylation of BrZ7.

[A Method to Estimate Metal Abundance from Stellar Spectra Using Ca Line Index].

This paper presents a method to estimate stellar metallicity based on BP neural network and Ca line index. This method trains a BP ANN model from SDSS/SEGUE stellar spectra and parameters provided by SSPP. The values of Teff and the line index of Ca lines are the input of network while the [Fe/H] values are the oputput of the network. A set of samples are resampled from the set of all and then a network model is trained. The network can be used to predict the stellar metallicity from low-resolution spsectra. The experiment shows that the proposed method can accurately and effectively measure the [Fe/H] from the stellar spectra.

The hormone-dependent function of Hsp90 in the crosstalk between 20-hydroxyecdysone and juvenile hormone signaling pathways in insects is determined by differential phosphorylation and protein interactions.

BACKGROUND: Heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) interacts with steroid hormone receptors, signaling kinases, and various transcription factors. However, the mechanism by which Hsp90 interacts with different proteins in various pathways remains unclear. METHODS: Western blot was used to study Hsp90 expression profile in Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera). RNA interference was performed to investigate the function of Hsp90 in 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) and juvenile hormone (JH) signal pathways. The binding of Hsp90 to the transcription factor ultraspiracle protein (USP1) and JH candidate receptor methoprene-tolerant (Met1) was analyzed by co-immunoprecipitation. Phospho-(Ser) PKC substrate antibody was used to detect Hsp90 phosphorylation. RESULTS: Hsp90 participated in 20E- or JH-induced gene expression. 20E induced the interaction between Hsp90 and USP1, whereas JH III and methoprene induced the interaction between Hsp90 and Met1, respectively. 20E and JH counteracted each other for these protein interactions. Both JH III and methoprene induced protein kinase C (PKC) phosphorylation of Hsp90. This process could be inhibited by phospholipase C (PLC) and PKC inhibitors. 20E suppressed JH III- or methoprene-induced PKC phosphorylation of Hsp90. CONCLUSION: 20E maintained the non-PKC-phosphorylation status of Hsp90. Hsp90 interacted with USP1 to induce gene expression in the 20E pathway. JH regulated the PKC-phosphorylation status of Hsp90. Hsp90 also interacted with Met1 to induce gene expression in the JH pathway. GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE: Our study describes a novel mechanism of Hsp90 action by altering phosphorylation and protein interaction in various hormonal signaling pathways.

Development of an anti-claudin-3 and -4 bispecific monoclonal antibody for cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Most malignant tumors are derived from epithelium, and claudin (CLDN)-3 and CLDN-4 are frequently overexpressed in such tumors. Although antibodies have potential in cancer diagnostics and therapy, development of antibodies against CLDNs has been difficult because the extracellular domains of CLDNs are too small and there is high homology among human, rat, and mouse sequences. Here, we created a monoclonal antibody that recognizes human CLDN-3 and CLDN-4 by immunizing rats with a plasmid vector encoding human CLDN-4. A hybridoma clone that produced a rat monoclonal antibody recognizing both CLDN-3 and -4 (clone 5A5) was obtained from a hybridoma screen by using CLDN-3- and -4-expressing cells; 5A5 did not bind to CLDN-1-, -2-, -5-, -6-, -7-, or -9-expressing cells. Fluorescence-conjugated 5A5 injected into xenograft mice bearing human cancer MKN74 or LoVo cells could visualize the tumor cells. The human-rat chimeric IgG1 monoclonal antibody (xi5A5) activated FcγRIIIa in the presence of CLDN-3- or -4-expressing cells, indicating that xi5A5 may exert antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. Administration of xi5A5 attenuated tumor growth in xenograft mice bearing MKN74 or LoVo cells. These results suggest that 5A5 shows promise in the development of a diagnostic and therapeutic antibody for cancers.

Assessment of quality of life in giant ameloblastoma adolescent patients who have had mandible defects reconstructed with a free fibula flap.

BACKGROUND: The reconstruction of mandibular defects after giant ameloblastoma resection is one of the most challenging problems facing reconstructive surgeons. Mandibular resection has been associated with a poor quality of life (QOL), particularly in adolescent patients reconstructed with a free fibula flap. This study aims to evaluate QOL outcomes in adolescent patients who have had mandibular resections of giant ameloblastoma and reconstruction with a free fibula flap and to collect information about their socio-cultural situation. METHODS: The present study assessed 45 adolescent patients who had undergone immediate mandible reconstruction with a free fibula flap for faint ameloblastoma using University of Washington Quality of Life (UW-QOL) and 14-item Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14) questionnaires. RESULTS: Thirty-five of the 54 questionnaires were returned (64.81%). In the UW-QOL, of the twelve disease-specific domains, the best three scores from the patients related to pain, shoulder and appearance and the worst three scores related to chewing, anxiety and saliva. In the OHIP-14, the lowest-scoring domain was handicap, followed by physical pain and social disability. CONCLUSIONS: Mandibular reconstruction with a free fibular flap significantly influenced the adolescent patients' QOL. Adolescent patients pay more attention to postoperative facial appearance; this should be considered in surgical planning.

[Atmospheric parameter estimation for LAMOST/GUOSHOUJING spectra].

It is a key task to estimate the atmospheric parameters from the observed stellar spectra in exploring the nature of stars and universe. With our Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopy Telescope (LAMOST) which begun its formal Sky Survey in September 2012, we are obtaining a mass of stellar spectra in an unprecedented speed. It has brought a new opportunity and a challenge for the research of galaxies. Due to the complexity of the observing system, the noise in the spectrum is relatively large. At the same time, the preprocessing procedures of spectrum are also not ideal, such as the wavelength calibration and the flow calibration. Therefore, there is a slight distortion of the spectrum. They result in the high difficulty of estimating the atmospheric parameters for the measured stellar spectra. It is one of the important issues to estimate the atmospheric parameters for the massive stellar spectra of LAMOST. The key of this study is how to eliminate noise and improve the accuracy and robustness of estimating the atmospheric parameters for the measured stellar spectra. We propose a regression model for estimating the atmospheric parameters of LAMOST stellar(SVM(lasso)). The basic idea of this model is: First, we use the Haar wavelet to filter spectrum, suppress the adverse effects of the spectral noise and retain the most discrimination information of spectrum. Secondly, We use the lasso algorithm for feature selection and extract the features of strongly correlating with the atmospheric parameters. Finally, the features are input to the support vector regression model for estimating the parameters. Because the model has better tolerance to the slight distortion and the noise of the spectrum, the accuracy of the measurement is improved. To evaluate the feasibility of the above scheme, we conduct experiments extensively on the 33 963 pilot surveys spectrums by LAMOST. The accuracy of three atmospheric parameters is log Teff: 0.006 8 dex, log g: 0.155 1 dex, [Fe/H]: 0.104 0 dex.

[A new method of sparse feature extraction for stellar spectra].

The authors propose a novel method of feature extraction for stellar spectra parameterization. The basic procedures are: First, stellar spectra are decomposed by multi-scale Harr wavelet and the coefficients with high-frequency are rejected. Secondly, the optimal features are detected by the lasso algorithm. Finally, we input the optimal feature vector to non-parametric regression model to estimate the atmospheric parameters. Haar wavelet can remove the high-frequency noise from the stellar spectrum. Lasso algorithm can further compress data by analyzing their significance on parameterization and removing redundancy. Experiments show that the proposed Haar+lasso method improves the accuracy and efficiency of the estimation. The authors used this scheme to estimate the atmospheric parameters from a subsample of some 40,000 stellar spectra from SDSS. The accuracies of our predictions (mean absolute errors) for each parameter are 0.0071 dex for log Teff, 0.2252 dex for log g, and 0.1996 dex for [Fe/H]. Compared with the results of the existing literature, this scheme can derive more accurate atmospheric parameters.

Frailty and its Associated Factors Among Rural Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study.

To investigate the status quo and influencing factors of overall frailty and its 3 domains among rural community-dwelling older adults. This is a cross-sectional study. A convenience sample of 195 older adults from 6 villages in Bashang Area of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, China, were recruited from August to September, 2022. The demographic characteristics, the Chinese version of Tilburg Frailty Indicator, Charlson Comorbidity Scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were used to investigate frailty and its influencing factors. Univariate analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were employed. The prevalence of overall frailty among the older adults in Bashang Area was 85.13%. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that age, gender, marital status, regular exercise, comorbidity, and anxiety were the influencing factors of overall frailty. While anxiety was the only shared influencing factor for physical frailty, psychological frailty, and social frailty, age, gender, marital status, financial burden, the comorbidity, and regular exercise were factors which influenced 1 or 2 domains of frailty. The prevalence of overall frailty among the older adults in rural areas, Zhangjiakou City is high. It is influenced by many factors. Medical staff and policy makers should work hand in hand to improve frailty among rural community-dwelling older adults in China.

Comparative analysis of the complete mitogenomes of Camellia sinensis var. sinensis and C. sinensis var. assamica provide insights into evolution and phylogeny relationship.

Introduction: Among cultivated tea plants (Camellia sinensis), only four mitogenomes for C. sinensis var. assamica (CSA) have been reported so far but none for C. sinensis var. sinensis (CSS). Here, two mitogenomes of CSS (CSSDHP and CSSRG) have been sequenced and assembled. Methods: Using a combination of Illumina and Nanopore data for the first time. Comparison between CSS and CSA mitogenomes revealed a huge heterogeneity. Results: The number of the repetitive sequences was proportional to the mitogenome size and the repetitive sequences dominated the intracellular gene transfer segments (accounting for 88.7%- 92.8% of the total length). Predictive RNA editing analysis revealed that there might be significant editing in NADH dehydrogenase subunit transcripts. Codon preference analysis showed a tendency to favor A/T bases and T was used more frequently at the third base of the codon. ENc plots analysis showed that the natural selection play an important role in shaping the codon usage bias, and Ka/Ks ratios analysis indicated Nad1 and Sdh3 genes may have undergone positive selection. Further, phylogenetic analysis shows that six C. sinensis clustered together, with the CSA and CSS forming two distinct branches, suggesting two different evolutionary pathway. Discussion: Altogether, this investigation provided an insight into evolution and phylogeny relationship of C. sinensis mitogenome, thereby enhancing comprehension of the evolutionary patterns within C. sinensis species.

Elements of Post-Transplant Recovery in Lung Transplant Recipients: A Scoping Review.

To clarify and refine the specific elements of post-transplant recovery in lung transplant recipients, we explored the four dimensions of recovery: physiological, psychological, social, and habitual. This study is a scoping review. Two authors conducted a comprehensive electronic literature search to identify studies published from the establishment of the database to August 2022. Deductive coding was utilized to identify and categorize elements using a predefined list of the four components (physiological, psychological, social, and habitual recovery) based on the framework of post-transplant recovery proposed by Lundmark et al. Inductive coding was applied for concepts requiring further classification. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guideline. Systematic searching identified 8,616 potential records, of which 51 studies met the inclusion criteria. Ten subdimensions and their corresponding elements were identified and categorized into four dimensions of recovery following lung transplantation. The subdimensions included physiological recovery (including symptom experience, complications, physical function, and energy reserve), psychological recovery (encompassing affective distress, psychological adaptation, and transition from illness to health), social recovery (involving family adaptation and social adaptation), and habit recovery (focusing on health behavior).

Nature of back slopping kombucha fermentation process: insights from the microbial succession, metabolites composition changes and their correlations.

Kombucha, a fermented tea prepared with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY), offers a unique and unpredictable home-brewed fermentation process. Therefore, the need for a controlled kombucha fermentation process has become evident, which requiring a thorough understanding of the microbial composition and its relationship with the metabolites produced. In this study, we investigated the dynamics of microbial communities and metabolites over a 12-day fermentation period of a conventional kombucha-making process. Our findings revealed similarities between the microbial communities in the early (0-2 days) and late (10-12 days) fermentation periods, supporting the principle of back-slopping fermentation. Untargeted metabolite analysis unveiled the presence of harmful biogenic amines in the produced kombucha, with concentrations increasing progressively throughout fermentation, albeit showing relatively lower abundance on days 8 and 12. Additionally, a contrasting trend between ethanol and caffeine content was observed. Canonical correspondence analysis highlighted strong positive correlations between specific bacterial/yeast strains and identified metabolites. In conclusion, our study sheds light on the microbial and metabolite dynamics of kombucha fermentation, emphasizing the importance of microbial control and quality assurance measures in the production process.

[A novel scheme SVR(HAAR) for automatically estimating stellar atmospheric parameters from spectrum].

A novel scheme SVR(Haar) is proposed in the present work for automatically estimating the physical parameters of stellar spectra. The observed spectrum is disturbed usually by noise which is caused by the universe radiation, the atmosphere and observation equipment. Furthermore, the noise usually is the component of the spectrum with higher frequency. Therefore, we propose to extract features with Haar wavelet by removing higher frequency components. Researches show that this procedure can improve the accuracy of the estimation. Secondly, the support vector regression model is employed for estimating physical parameters of the stellar spectra. In this method, the epsilon insensitive domain techniques can further improve the probability to the slight distortion of the spectrum from imperfect calibration, and enhance the robustness of the proposed scheme. To check the effectiveness of the proposed scheme SVR(Haar), we did experiments extensively on authoritative simulated stellar spectra and real spectra observed by SLOAN, and compared it with the typical methods in the literature. The results show that the SVR (Haar) is better than the principal component analysis and non-parametric regression model in the literature.

Preliminary Investigation of Essentially Derived Variety of Tea Tree and Development of SNP Markers.

The continuous emergence of Essentially Derived Varieties (EDVs) in the process of tea tree breeding will endanger and affect the innovation ability and development potential of tea tree breeding. In this study, genotyping by sequencing (GBS) technology was used to screen high-quality genomic SNPs for the first time to investigate the derived relationships of 349 tea trees from 12 provinces in China. A total of 973 SNPs uniformly covering 15 tea tree chromosomes with high discrimination capacity were screened as the core SNP set. A genetic similarity analysis showed that 136 pairs of tea trees had a genetic similarity coefficient (GS) > 90%, among which 60 varieties/strains were identified as EDVs, including 22 registered varieties (19 were indisputably EDVs). Furthermore, 21 SNPs with 100% identification of 349 tea trees were selected as rapid identification markers, of which 14 SNP markers could be used for 100% identification of non-EDV. These results provide the basis for the analysis of the genetic background of tea trees in molecular-assisted breeding.

[Efficient computation of spectral flux normalization].

Flux normalization is a key procedure in spectral data mining, and is important for the efficiency and accuracy of automatic processing of massive astronomical spectral data, information extraction and sharing. Since the usual implementation of flux normalizing methods is inefficient, the present work focuses on the algorithm designing of spectral flux normalization. Firstly, the authors investigated the limit efficiency characteristics of the available flux normalization methods, introduced four efficient flux normalizing algorithms, and studied their time complexity and space complexity. Secondly, the authors evaluated the efficiency of the proposed algorithms experimentally and horizontally based on the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey) released spectral data. In the theoretical research, the main consideration is the computational complexity characteristics of the flux normalization methods when the data size increases unlimitedly. The experimental research focuses on the difference in the computational burden between the basic operations in different flux normalization methods. It is shown that, although the four flux normalization methods S(max), S(median), S(mean) and S(unit) belong to the same limit efficiency type, on the spectra with usual observing scale, S(max) and S(median) are much more efficient than S(mean) and S(unit), and S(unit) is the most inefficient one. This work is helpful for choosing the appropriate flux normalization method based on the size of spectra database and the scientific needs in automatic spectra analysis.